Mexico, which had disavowed Santa Anna's actions at Velasco. The newly installed Houston administration endorsed the idea, and the Texas Senate, after an initial vote to detain Santa Anna, agreed to allow him to travel to Washington, D.C. Henson, "Politics and the Treatment of the Mexican Prisoners," 189-230.

     2. Santa Anna's efforts to negotiate a peace had been severely censured by his countrymen, and upon his return to Mexico he issued a statement in which he declared that he had acted in an unofficial capacity only, and that he had not intended to speak for the government of Mexico - a position that Texas and U.S. leaders had taken for granted. Santa Anna also took the opportunity to announce his retirement from public life and to thank Sam Houston for helping to secure his freedom. Castañeda, The Mexican Side, 5-49.

     3. The Battle of San Jacinto did not quell the belligerent spirit of certain elements in the Texas army. In the months that followed, Thomas Jefferson Green and other firebrands argued loudly in favor of an attack on Matamoros. The president opposed such a plan, ultimately foiling the military ambitions of those who clamored for an invasion of Mexico, by furloughing all but six hundred men in the Texas army. Stanley Siegel, A Political History of the Texas Republic, 65-67.

     4. At the outset of his presidency, Lamar sought a peaceful settlement with Mexico, but three separate attempts to obtain recognition of Texas' sovereignty were rebuffed by Mexican leaders, who continued to regard the Republic as a province in revolt. Frustrated by the failure of his diplomatic overtures and desperate to find a remedy for his country's economic woes, Lamar seized upon the idea of opening a trade route with Santa Fé, with the ultimate objective of inducing its citizens to renounce their allegiance to Mexico. The result was the quixotic Santa Fé Expedition, which, after a tortuous and exhausting march through Indian territory, surrendered to Mexican authorities in September 1842. Cruelly treated at the hands of their captors, the prisoners were marched into Mexico, languishing in prisons there until the spring of the following year. This episode served to reignite the hostilities between Texas and Mexico, largely dormant since 1836, prompting calls for retaliation on both sides. See George Wilkins Kendall, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition.

     5. The mayor of San Antonio, Juan Nepomuceno Seguín had served with distinction in the Texas Revolution against the centralist Mexican government, but his life in the years that followed San Jacinto had not been happy ones. He had become disgruntled with the treatment in the new Republic of tejanos, who were often treated "worse than brutes," and felt that he had become "a foreigner in my native land." Although Seguín had warned residents of San Antonio in the spring of 1842 of the impending Vásquez invasion, rumors that he was collaborating with the enemy forced him to flee to Mexico. Juan N. Seguín, Personal Memoirs, iv, 19, 22-27.
 

Chapter Two ~ Notes